


mi amas vin

by Halbeary



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, they love each other :-)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-23
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:09:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halbeary/pseuds/Halbeary
Summary: In which they are cold, and then very cold, and then warm in more ways than one.





	mi amas vin

**Author's Note:**

> note: I used google translate for esperanto for this I have no heckin idea how accurate it is since very few people actually speak it.
> 
> enjoy!

“You know w-what’s amazing?”

Ted’s mouth shifts against his chest. “Hn?”

“The s-sun. The sun is amazing.” He lets out a sigh, imagining a very different scenario where he’s back on the JLI Headquarters' roof soaking up some precious UV instead of stranded out in the middle of space slowly freezing to death with his best friend. Ted shifts against his chest.

“Y-you know what’s even m-more amazing?”

“Hmm?” Booster grunts.

“That soup that Sue brought Ralph t-that one time when he–” Ted sniffs “– when he was sick that we ate b-before he could get to it.”

Booster moans. “God, yeah. T-that was _so_ good.” His fingers drift lazily over the little ridges on the back of Ted’s uniform. “You know what else is g-good? Extra large hot coffee from Sund-dollar.”

“W-warm underwear right out of the d-dryer.”

“When- when Bea gets really angry and t-turns into a big fireball and threatens to roast me alive.”

Ted hesitates.

“.. I t-think you might be getting a bit delirious, Booster ol’ b-buddy.”

Booster nods sagely. Ted’s so smart.

“I think you might be right, T-teddy ol’ p-pal.”

 

––––––––

 

“Boost?”

Booster’s head lolls to the side against the wall. “Hm?”

“.. I can’t f-feel my legs anymore.”

Something in his chest squeezes. He tugs Ted tighter against his chest. His own muscles had stopped shivering a long time ago, but Ted’s got a little more bulk on him, so his teeth are still clattering away. _He always knew that pudge was good for more than just looking cute._

“Don’t worry, cavalry will be here soon.”

Ted snorts. His words are slurred-sounding, muffled against Booster’s uniform. “H-hope so. I don’t know what I’d c-call myself if have to amputate my legs due to f-frostbite.” Booster taps on one of the knobs of his spine.

“What about those bugs that you guys have in this century that just kinda.. roll around.” He purses his lips in thought. “ _Vermo?_ No–”

Ted laughs, and it’s quiet and subdued, weak sounding. It makes Booster’s heart clench.

“Pillbug. _A-armadillidium vulgare.”_

Booster rubs his chin on the top of his affectionately. “Nerd.”

“Um, excuse me. Who’s the guy who knew what a p-pillbug was when they don’t even have _insects_ in his century?”

“It was incidental knowledge,” he insists defensively. “You’re very boring when you’re building stuff in your beetle cave. I have to amuse myself somehow.”

“So you _read my books?_ ” Ted sounds a little bit _too_ incredulous. Booster knocks the top of his head.

“It’s either that or watch _Voyage Home_ for the thirteenth time. You really need to expand your blu-ray collection, by the way. It’s pathetic.”

Ted huffs. “Hey. T-that’s a classic.”

Booster rolls his eyes. “That is _not_ how time travel works.”

“ _God_ ,” Ted groans. “What I wouldn’t give to be s-slingshotted around the s-sun right now.”

Booster hums in agreement.

 

––––––––

 

It’s quiet. Booster narrows his eyes. _Too_ quiet.

“Ted. _Teddy_.” He jostles Ted against his chest and frowns when Ted makes a noise of protest. A jolt of panic stabs through his chest. “Don’t fall asleep.”

Ted makes a disgruntled noise and Booster lets out a sigh of relief when his long dark lashes blink open again. Ted might have a little more total body fat, but he’s still a lot smaller overall. He squeezes his fingers on his back.

“Talk to me, buddy.”

Ted blinks very slowly. Pauses, like forgot where he was and is trying to remember. “M’ too tired to.. words.”

Booster shifts his hand up to flick his forehead. Ted glares up at him with narrowed eyes.

“Too bad. Tell me about, uh–” he glances around him “– whatever upgrades you’re gonna do when we get back.” Ted loves upgrades. He can talk about them for days. _Years,_ probably.

Ted hums. His thumb is moving in a little circle over the star on his chest. Booster wonders if he realises.

“The only thing I can think of is adding a fifth backup power supply. Possibly a sixth.” Ted shifts a little and Booster drops his hand down to his hip to help him get further up on his chest. Ted sighs. “You know what? I’m just going to add another ten. Just in case.” Booster snorts.

“Never hurts to be prepared.”

He can’t feel his legs, either, though that might just be because Ted’s been laying on them for the last god knows how long. Ted’s stopped shivering, he notes with another pulse of anxiety.

“Hey. Boost.”

He tilts his head down. “Hmm?”

Ted pauses. The hand wrapped around his back flexes a little bit. He sees Ted’s tongue dart out to lick his lips, hears him clear his throat.

“Y’know, if we don’t, uh–”

Booster groans. “Nope. Nuh uh, we’re not gonna do the whole tearful _if we don’t make it_ convo. It’s a) way too cheesy, and b) I _told_ you, they’ll be here soon.”

Ted lifts his forehead up a little bit and knocks it against his chest.

“But what if they _don’t_?”

“Oh my god, Ted. We’re not gonna die. This is way too uncool of a situation for us to go out in.”

Ted’s finger taps against his chest. _“But–”_

Booster summons his strength and rolls them over until he’s squishing Ted into the floor with his full body weight. Ted makes an unflattering squawking noise.

“You’re not gonna die, because I’m not gonna let you die, okay?” He braces his arms around Ted’s head and curls around him like a burrito. “So you can stop worrying.”

Ted squirms a little bit. He eventually wraps his hands around Booster’s back and lets out a little sigh.

“Why do _I_ have to be the little spoon?”

Booster taps the top of his head with an uncoordinated motion. _God_ , he’s so tired. “Ĉar vi estas malgranda kaj beleta,” he mumbles into Ted’s hair.

“One of these days m’gonna be good enough at Esperanto to understand you,” Ted grumbles from underneath him, “and then you’ll be in trouble.”

Booster pats his head and lets his eyes slip closed.

 

––––––––

 

He regains some amount of consciousness some indiscernible amount of time later. Something pokes his chest.

“Mikey.”

Booster’s eyes drag open with a monumental effort. Forcing his vocal chords to work takes a good thirty seconds.

“Mm?”

One of Ted’s hands slips into his hair, the other settling along the base of his spine. When Ted speaks he can barely hear him, it’s so quiet.

“Thank you. For stealing that time machine.”

Booster’s eyes sting. He dips his head and plants a kiss into Ted’s icy brown hair. Ted’s fingers squeeze his neck, and then he slips back into unconsciousness.

 

––––––––

 

“Booster.”

“Nnhhg,” he mumbles into his pillow. “Kvin minutoj.”

“Boooooooster.”

Booster prys one eye open. He’s not on the bug. There’s a soft beeping noise somewhere behind him. The sheets are scratchy and sterile-smelling. _Oh. Archaic caveman hospital._

“Move over, will ya? M’ freezing.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder. He follows it up to its designated arm, and then up to its owner’s face.

Ted.

Beautiful, _alive_ Ted. He lets out a sigh of relief, and obediently scoots to his left. He’s too tired to care about maintaining weird 21st century socially acceptable platonic distances. Besides, _Ted_ was the one who asked, and he’s never been able to deny Ted anything ever. Said best friend clamours over the side of the bed and ducks under the covers. A finger pokes his side. He blinks one eye open and tilts his head to the left.

“So.”

Ted looks ridiculous. His hair’s a mass of curly auburn tangles and someone seems to have put him in a soft blue shirt that’s just _slightly_ too small. Booster grins.

“ _So_. I see you still have all your limbs.” He cuts himself off with a yawn. One hand shifts to scratch at his belly. “Guess I’ll have to stick to calling you _Blue Dungbeetle_ for now.”

Ted laughs. He didn’t realise how nice that sound was, the deeply sincere way that Ted always seems to laugh straight from his gut with that ridiculous _bwah_.

“Yup, all appendages intact.” He wiggles his fingers for emphasis. Ted’s head tilts more towards him, eyes narrowed in thought. “ _Although_.. I did hear J’onn say something about you having some minor nerve damage..”

Booster blinks, suddenly much more alert. An icy feeling works its way into his chest. “What? _Where?_ ”

Ted pauses. Takes a deep breath.

“Your shiny gold behind.”

Booster gasps in horror. “ _No_.”

Ted nods solemnly. “’Fraid so.”

Booster fumbles with the blankets, hand sinking under the thick fabric until he can rub against his ass. The rub that he can feel perfectly fine. He narrows his eyes. _Wait a minute–_

Ted snickers, and Booster opens his mouth to say something about _betrayal_ but the look on Ted’s face proves contagious and soon they’re both giggling into the starchy hospital pillows.

“God, can you imagine?” he says after he finally catches his breath. Booster flops his arm towards the ceiling. “That would have been the biggest tragedy to befall mankind since World War Three.” He lets his eyes slip closed, wrist dropping to his forehead. “There would be riots in the streets.”

Ted laughs with a loud _bwah hah hah_ and that sets him off again. He can’t quite help himself. He’s just so happy that they _made_ it. That Ted’s okay. That they’re both here, in this stupidly small bed covered in what looks like every blanket whoever put them there could scrounge from the JLI headquarters. It’s warm and comfortable, and Ted’s breath hitting the side of his face makes him feel twice as cozy as he would have been otherwise.

A minute passes of him basking in the atmosphere, and then he hears Ted clear his throat.

“So..” he starts again, voice oddly hesitant sounding. His tone makes Booster turn on his side and give him his full attention.

“So?”

Ted blinks at him. He’s cheekbones are slightly red. Booster wonders if he’s overheating now that they’re both under the covers.

“So– um. I had a thought, earlier.”

Booster nods. Ted’s always thinking about _something_. “Uh huh. What about?”

Ted’s fingers twist in the top of the sheets. “I guess.. about death?”

Booser blinks. “Um–”

Ted’s eyes go wide. “I mean! Not about _dying_ , but more about– _philosophy?_ ” His voice cracks on the last word. Michael blinks again. Ted’s looking kinda sweaty, all of a sudden. He wonders if he has a fever.

“Okay,” he says hesitantly, fully prepared to be subjected to another one of Ted’s genius-level rants that usually go right over his head.

Ted rubs at his eyes with his hand and makes a frustrated noise. “Okay no, not about philosophy. I was just thinking about– well, our lives are pretty weird, right?”

Booster shrugs. “Eh. Above average.”

Ted shoots him a _look_. “You call getting punted halfway to Mars by a giant robot _above average?_ ”

Booster shrugs again. “Hey, you’re talking to a guy who jumped into a glass sphere and travelled back in time basically on a whim. After that, everything else seems pretty tame.”

Ted rolls his eyes. “Okay. Fair,” he concedes. “But.. our lives are pretty dangerous, right?”

Michael nods, unsure of where this is going. “Uh huh..”

“Like, we would have _died_ up there if we didn’t have an equally weird gang of people who, on occasion, have our backs.”

Booster raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I guess? I don’t see what you’re–”

“ _So_ , we could pretty much die in a crazy, totally random and unpredictable way at any moment, yeah?”

 _Is he having second thoughts about superheroing or something?_ “Uh.. yeah, I guess. But that’s just part of the charm, y’know?” He makes a rainbow motion with his hand. “Blue and Gold: dangerous crime-fighting duo. Remember?”

Ted’s mouth quirks in a small smile. “Yeah, I remember.” Booster thinks he hears his next breath get caught somewhere in his throat. “ _But–_ after I had this realization, I got to thinking..” his thumb and index finger pick at some invisible lint on the sheet. “What if tomorrow, or next week, or next year, I get, I dunno, like.. thrown into the sun or something? What if some villain just floats down from whatever evil war-planet, and his only mission in life is to eradicate every bug-loving guy in this universe, and then _poof_ ,” Ted’s eyes widen as he wiggles his fingers in front of his face. “I’m gone, just like that.”

Booster frowns. “Yeah, I mean, I guess that could happen. Hypothetically.” He doesn’t mention that he would die before letting Ted get vaporized by some crazy alien. It doesn’t seem prudent.

Ted nods. “Exactly! So I was thinking. I don’t want to–” Ted takes a deep breath “– to have any regrets.. in case I suddenly get turned into a finely roasted beetle on the whim of some crazy alien exterminator.”

Booster blinks. Ted’s not looking at him. His eyes are settled somewhere in the space between them, and his cheeks are bright red. His lips feel dry, all of a sudden. He swipes his tongue out to wet them.

“Uh huh.” He swallows. “Makes sense.”

Ted’s fingers clench tight around the bed sheets. He looks about ten seconds away from a nervous breakdown. Booster instinctually reaches a hand out to comfort him, but Ted snags it before it gets to him. He hesitates a moment, bites his bottom lip, and then their fingers slot together. Michael can suddenly hear the pounding of his heart in his ears.

“Yeah.” Ted’s thumb brushes over the back of his hand and then he’s looking straight at him, face on fire but eyes full of determination. “Yeah, so–”

And then he squeezes his fingers, pushes himself up on one arm, closes the distance between them and kisses him.

Booster’s eyes go wide.

Ted’s lips are slightly chapped, textured in a way that he knows is from him nervously chewing on them all the time. His hand is fisted in his shirt, arm muscles trembling slightly where he’s propped on his chest and Booster can’t do anything but blink, stunned into immobility at the fact that Ted’s _kissing him_. Ted, his best friend. The dude he’s been crushing on for almost four years now. His favorite person in the whole world who he was _so sure_ was straight that he never bothered trying to even test the waters. The guy who’s– who’s pulling back, a mortified expression on his face and something heartbreaking in his eyes and–

“I’m– I’m sorry, I just–” Ted backpedals and tries to escape but Booster still has a grip on his hand that he won’t let go of. “I just– I _do_ know a little bit of Esperanto, you know, I’ve been teaching myself, and I’m pretty sure that you called me _cute_ , unless I was just delirious and hallucinating, which is starting to seem like the case so I’m just going to– we can just forget that I ever did this, and go back to–”

Booster covers Ted’s mouth with his hand. Ted goes very still, tense like he’s waiting for Booster to snap at him. Booster tilts his head to the side and smiles.

“Ted.”

He hooks his leg around the back of Ted’s ass and pushes him forward. He raises his eyebrows and smiles even harder as Ted’s eyes go wide.

“Shut up,” he says brightly, and then grabs a fistful of his shirt and kisses him like he’s wanted to since the moment he laid eyes on him.

The _sound_ that Ted makes is the only thing he wants to hear ever again for the rest of his life– a quiet _oh_ that gets pressed between their mouths and swallowed by his lips and then he shifts his hips, tilts his head more to the right and runs his tongue along Ted’s lower lip and okay, no, _that_ was the best sound he’s ever heard, the desperate-sounding moan that Ted makes when he curls his tongue around Ted’s and swirls it in a dirty circle. His foot urges Ted closer, and then he suddenly has Ted’s hands in his hair, Ted’s legs on either side of him and _okay_ , _for real this time_ , _that_ is definitely the best sound he’s ever heard, the one that Ted makes when he rocks his hips up and sucks on his lower lip at the same time.

His entire world narrows down to Ted’s lips, Ted’s fingers carding through his hair almost reverently, the heat of Ted’s body pressing him down into the sheets, and he never wants to leave this cozy Ted-filled bubble. _In fact_ , he decides right then and there, _he wants to exclusively occupy a Ted-bubble for the rest of his life._

Ted pulls back with a loud inhale, gasping for air as he runs his fingers down the side of Booster’s face, over the arch of his eyebrow and down to the dimple on the side of his mouth and he has such a fond, happy look in his eyes that Booster can’t help but laugh giddily and tug him back down for another kiss.

He’s too hot, all of a sudden, so he kicks off the sheets with his foot and then he’s sliding his hand down Ted’s side, over the soft curve of his stomach and around to grab a handful of his super amazing ass. Ted moans into his mouth, and Booster hums appreciatively while dragging him closer. He remembers how Ted had felt underneath him on the floor of the Bug all those hours ago, and before he can really even think about it he’s flipping them over, pressing Ted into the mattress and–

“ _Aha!_ ”

Both of them turn to see Bea standing in the doorway, whole face alight with triumph. Before he can think of anything to say she's twisting back and running out the door.

Her voice – “ _Tora! You owe me fifty bucks!_ "– fades into the hallway and then they're alone. Booster blinks, and they both turn to each other at the same time, eyes wide.

Ted cracks first, a quiet _pff_  that quickly turns into uncontrollable giggling and then Booster’s laughing too, hand snaking into Ted's hair and holding on as they laugh until they’re both red in the face.

“I can't believe she  _bet_ on us," Ted groans, words punctuated by another string of giggles.

“I _know_ ," Booster agrees. "Without even consulting us? We coulda cashed out.”

Ted covers his mouth as he  _bwah hah hahs_ and that sends Booster back into another laughing fit until _finally_ he manages regain some semblance of control over himself, tug Ted’s arm off of his face, the other off his chest, and pin them both on either side of him. He slides his hands up the underside of Ted’s forearm and twists their fingers together.

“Theodore.”

Ted tilts his head to the side and smiles at him so fondly that Booster’s stomach does a happy little flip.

“Michael.”

Booster grins even wider. He squeezes Ted’s fingers.

“I can’t believe you’ve been secretly lusting after me and my perfect, definitely _not_ damaged, ass this entire time.” He gasps in mock horror. “You _are_ capable of deception. Who knows what other lies you’re keeping from me.” He puts his hand over his eyes. “I bet your favorite color isn’t even _blue.”_

Ted laughs again and untangles his hand to flick Booster’s nose.

“No, you’re just an obtuse 25th century man who has no idea about 21st century social queues.”

Booster huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, I’ve wanted to sex you since that cafe in Paris. So who’s obtuse now, you caveman?”

Ted’s face goes red and Booster grins. _Victory_. He reaches down to run his hand down Ted’s chest, down to where that slightly-too-small blue shirt is riding up his waist. He slips his hand around Ted’s waist and thumbs at his hipbone. Ted’s eyelashes flutter, and something hot curls behind Booster’s navel.

“ _Okay_ ,” Ted says with an authoritative tone. “I’m willing to concede that we both may be a bit obtuse.”

Booster laughs. “Concession granted.” He leans back down to kiss him, just because Ted looks really good with his eyes all dark like that and his hair all messed up from their previous activities. And also just because he can.

Ted hums against his lips and cups his cheek, brushing his thumb against his cheekbone before pulling back.

“Hmm, do you think we can make it back to my room without permanently scarring any more of our coworkers?”

Booster grins. “Definitely not.”

Ted kisses him one more time, slips out of the bed and impatiently tugs Booster towards the door.

“Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Vermo = 'spider'
> 
> Ĉar vi estas malgranda kaj beleta =~ 'because you are tiny and cute'
> 
> Kvin minutoj = 'five more minutes'
> 
> hope you liked c: prompt me @ bloostle.tumblr.com


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